Mass Effect: New Light
by Last Ride Of The Valkyries
Summary: A mass relay has been found, and there's Darkness coming through. In an effort to stop it, Guardians will encounter new, slightly less hostile aliens. And a new source of Darkness: Reapers.
1. Prolog

**A/N: Hey, I'm finally back. For those of you wondering, yes, I did die; call me Last Ride of the Zombie Valkyries (although the valkyries are sort of dead anyway). Chances are that if you're reading this, you know that I've decided to do a Mass Effect-Destiny crossover (though I do need a better title, and am open to suggestions). So, to forestall any questions about facts that may never come up in-story will be addressing gameplay mechanics that are different from this story. There is exactly one of every exotic. One. Chances are, the characters in this story won't have any exotics, ever. Also, there's no way to swap between subclasses: a Defender is a Defender is a Defender and can never ever become a Striker. The Darkness does regenerate certain missions (and yes, Reapers are part of the Darkness), but not every character has gone on every mission.**

**AND JUST IN CASE: The Citadel races do not know about Light, so they will be assuming that Guardians use some really weird biotics until proven otherwise, and vice versa, so do not ask me why they keep getting it wrong. SERIOUSLY, DON'T ASK, BECAUSE IT'S RIGHT HERE.**

**Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Bungie or BioWare. This work of fiction is for enjoyment only.**

* * *

Prolog

* * *

The Speaker looked out of his retreat, studying the horizon of the City. The Heart of the Black Garden had been destroyed, but the Darkness was still out there, beyond the Reef. The Speaker could feel the Traveler healing. But it was slow going, and the Darkness knew that. It would press the advantage for as long as it could, desperate to keep the Traveler from waking up again.

Already, Crota stirred, woken from his slumber by the shadowed thoughts of Darkness pressing up against reality. No team of Guardians could hope to kill a god like that, so all they could do was keep the Hive from pulling him out of his netherworld and letting him reemerge. The Speaker had even been forced to allow Eris Morn back into the Tower. He could feel the Darkness polluting her the same way that it had tugged at Toland before he'd disappeared, but times were desperate. Atheon would just keep rewinding time, forcing Guardians to risk their Light to keep him from emerging from his Vault to eat Venus and Earth and Mars and Mercury. And the Fallen were regaining power, the Vanguard said. They warned that another Twilight Gap was coming, if something didn't happen soon. Even the capture of Skolas wouldn't deter the braver Fallen for long.

The New Monarchy was insisting that these happenings were proof that a Speaker could not protect the City. Dead Orbit was taking them as signs that it was time to leave, because the Darkness would never be denied and could not be fought. The Future War Cult argued with Dead Orbit, proclaiming its War of No Tomorrow as fact because the Darkness kept coming, but Guardians would keep fighting.

Something, somewhere had to give, or the City would fall as Guardians squabbled with each other. Perhaps a war with the Cabal. Taking back Mars would be a serious blow to Dark designs with the Cabal, and the Clovis Bray research center was filled with mysterious Golden Age technology. The Warlocks could pore over that, the Titans could be distracted by fighting Cabal, and Hunters would have assassinations to turn to, rather than the factions. There were already several Crucible arenas that could function as forward operating bases. _Yes. A war would unite the City and halt the Darkness._

The Speaker had just begun formulating a reason to attack the Cabal commander Valaus Ta'aurc when a Hunter burst through his thoughts. "Good evening, Speaker. The Vanguard requests your presence for an emergency meeting."

The Speaker froze. It was too late. Something had been pushed too far. Civilization was about to collapse. He wanted to panic. "Why does the Vanguard need me?" he asked coolly.

"Because there is an emissary from the Reef. Something's happened, or been found. Or maybe it was someone. Ikora Rey wasn't very clear when she told me to find you."

The Speaker dipped his head and said, "Thank you, Guardian." With a swish of his robes, he turned and strode out of the Tower North. On the way to the Vanguard's room, the Speaker couldn't help but worry about the news. Had Toland been found? Was the House of Wolves following a new Kell? Was the Reef now cast in Darkness?

"I don't care that it's in the Darkness. A team should investigate anyway, especially if the Awokens' readings were right." Cayde-6 was strident and loud as the Speaker swept into the room. Nobody said anything, but the Vanguard bowed their heads at him.

The Queen's emissary, however, ignored the Speaker and said, "The readings are correct. The readings are always correct."

"I am quite sure that your readings are correct, but what readings are they?" the Speaker asked. "Don't forget, I've only just arrived."

Ikora Rey opened her mouth and then closed it again when Commannder Zavala started speaking. "Awoken scouts found this." He motioned, and a purple object materialized. Two branches split off of a small body, creating a circular gap. Inside the crevice, a pulsating ball of darkness spun, lightning lashing off of it. Slender metal rings danced around it, twisting this way and that.

"In and of itself, interesting. But the coordinates it was found at match those of whatever the Shrine of Oryx communicates with as it summons the demon Sardok time and time again. Perhaps this is what gives it its mysterious source of power. Power and regeneration." Cayde-6 paused before adding, "And images of the object appear on multiple walls in Cabal firebases.

"So I have no clue why Ikora argues that we shouldn't investigate," Cayde concluded and sneered (or as much as an Exo could sneer) at Ikora Rey.

"Because that thing is pouring darkness like a jug. It's a gateway, and I don't think that we should let whatever's behind it know we exist."

A gateway? A blessing in disguise. The Speaker did his job; he spoke. "The Traveler is weak. The Traveler cannot stand alone against the Darkness. The Traveler needs our light in order to prevail. We must investigate this gateway." Getting away from the Traveler would satisfy Dead Orbit. Creating a new colony would hamper New Monarchy. And if there was a war to be had, the Future War Cult would hardly complain. "If there is indeed darkness behind it, it is our job to find it and remove the risk to the Traveler."

The Vanguard shared a three-way glance. To the Speaker, Zavala looked nervous; Cayde appeared apprehensive, as though he was having second thoughts; and Ikora was frowning outright. The Awoken emissary continued to stand stoically as she said, "The Reef will not send any investigative patrols through, but we do expect to be updated about what is behind the structure."

"Ikora Rey nodded and said, "Very well. I shall speak with Dead Orbit about mounting an expedition. I am sure that they will be eager to charter one if it means that they can find a new home."

* * *

**A/N: I'm sorry if you wanted to dive right into the First Contact War, but I feel that explaining how Destiny found Mass Effect and how the Darkness is related to the Reapers, because !SPOILER ALERT! it is. Chapter 3 will be the first meeting between the Turians and Guardians.  
**

**Also, yes, there is a reason that the relay wasn't encased in ice, but that's tied to how the Cabal, Fallen, Vex, and Hive are related to the Reapers, so I guess you'll just have to wait to find out. Or, you know, PM me for the full background, since another person looking at my theories and offering suggestions cannot hurt.**


	2. Emulating Komarov

**A/N: Tormound raises a good point about exotics. Some, like SUROS, do have more than one copy, but they are incredibly rare, so the point still stands. In other words, Gjallarhorn is the most common exotic, since it's an entire line of weapons, but you're going to find it even less commonly than you would in the game.**

* * *

Emulating Komarov

* * *

Grissom-18 studied the sensors on his ship. Laughing Behind Your Back hadn't failed him yet, but the data he was getting was weird. With a crackle, his comm flared to life. "Are you guys reading this?" Kaylee asked. "'Cause I'm getting a changing mass for this gateway thing." After both Grissom-18 and Jynarri confirmed Kaylee's readings, she said, "So, Jynarri, as our resident space magic expert, would you kindly explain what the hell is going on?"

Jynarri's sigh sounded like a burst of really ugly static over the comm. "If I've told you once, I've told you two point six thousand times. It is not space magic. It's the quantized manipulation of waveform packets of Light to modify spacetime and bend reality to my will."

"But saying 'As our resident quantized manipulation of waveform packets of Light to modify spacetime and bend reality expert' is too long to say," Kayee whined.

"Oh, in the same way that saying 'gliding' takes longer than saying 'floofing about'?" Jynarri retorted.

"Exactly!" Kaylee's mood immediately brightened. "I knew you'd get it, you smart Warlock you."

Why did being the adult have to fall to me? Grissom-18 wondered. "Alright, children. Calm down. Kaylee, your question is valid, but that does not mean that you can antagonize Jynarri."

"Even if he's so easy to antagonize?"

Grissom-18 groaned, sounding like a rusty hinge. "Yes, even if he is easy to antagonize. Especially if he's easy to antagonize. We do not want a repeat of the Reef incident."

Jynarri took the opportunity to cut in. "Well, Kaylee might, but that's only because she enjoys spending time in prison."

"Hey! Awoken prison is fun." Kaylee's mood shifted abruptly when she grumbled, "It's human prison that I don't like."

Jynarri said, "That's because you already know human anatomy. You learned more about Awoken biology in there than you'd ever learn on your own."

Grissom-18 really hoped that Kaylee would take that particular comment well; Kaylee's wrath was rarely rational, meaning that she tended to take things out on him. And, as the Darkness no doubt knew, an angry Kaylee was a scary Kaylee.

Luck seemed to be with Grissom-18, since all that Kaylee said in reply was, "Well, you were never going to teach me, you old fogey." Her words were sharp and spiteful, but at least she wasn't screaming.

"Hey. We have a job. Calm down or I'll calm you down." Grissom-18 rarely changed his vocal processes, preferring to sound like a calm, older man. In this instance, he had swapped his normal voice for something deeper and louder that screamed (figuratively, not literally) command. Once the radio had cleared up aside from little bursts of background noise, Grissom-18 reset his voice and said, "Jynarri, do you know why the gateway's mass is fluctuating?"

Grissom-18 knew that Jynarri was delving deep into his brain for answers before saying, "It's like nothing I've ever seen before, and the best theory I do have about it involves transmat systems, shock rifles, an absurd amount of glimmer, and Vex cells recovered from the Vault of Glass." He paused. "It's not a very good theory," Jynarri added almost as an afterthought.

Kaylee was about to say something, Grissom-18 knew. His Ghost spoke up first, though. "Guardian, I am picking up a handshake protocol from the artifact, but I cannot identify an origin source. The signal emanates from the gateway, but does not originate there."

"So it facilitates some sort of hyperluminal communications?" Grissom-18 asked.

Ghost bobbed up and down as he emulated a shrug. "It would indeed seem as though this gateway is an FTL communications relay of some kind, but I'd need to investigate closer."

"All right," Grissom-18 announced over the radio. "Guys, back up behind Pluto. Ghost, once they're away, accept the handshake." Grissom-18's next sentence was general enough to be an address to the people back in the Tower. "If I'm not back in twenty-four hours or the ineffable armies of Darkness start to pour through, destroy the gateway."

"Good luck, sir."

"I believe that the quote is 'nothing ventured . . .' Here's to you not dying out among the stars, left to drift and collect stardust."

"Wow. Kaylee, that's the opposite of inspiring."

"Okay, Jynarri McBossyPants. How's this? If you make it out of there alive, I'll bake you a cake and we'll have a bottle of champagne."

"Cake. Your best reason for Grissom-18 to come back is cake."

"And champagne!"

Grissom-18 tuned out his fireteam's bickering and said, "Whenever you're ready, Ghost."

Ghost's outer shell spun as he counted down. "Three . . . Two . . . One. Connection establi - whhoaa!" Grissom-18 couldn't blame Ghost; the sudden acceleration had shocked him too. There was a blue-out outside the window and his servos were shaking. Critical systems failures were scrolling across every display, even Grissom-18's internal ones. The radio had gone completely silent. Not even white noise. Ghost was pressed against the back wall of the cockpit the same way that Grissom-18 was shoved into his seat.

And abruptly, it stopped. Grissom-18 shook himself off, searching for fractures in his frame. Finding none, he turned to Ghost. "What was that?"

"I don't know. But based on star map triangulation, I'd estimate that we've traveled thirty-six light years."

Grissom-18's voice was low as he breathed, "If my calculations are correct, then that means we were going at least insanely fast, if not faster." He looked out at the stars, trying to find a constellation he recognized. Alas, 'twas in vain. Grissom-18 could not see a single star-picture; there was no bear (great or small), no swan, no dragon, bull, or hunter.

There was, however, another gateway behind Laughing Behind Your Back.

* * *

"What just happened?" Kaylee asked.

"The lightning. It just reached out and grabbed him," replied Jynarri.

"Yeah. I saw that part. I mean, what happened to Grissom-18? That's like no gateway I've ever seen. More like a circuit board. And we're ants that wandered too close." Kaylee maneuvered Quite Content Damsel out from behind Pluto and started to drift lazily closer to the object.

"What are you doing?" Jynarri hissed. "Grissom-18 was very clear. We wait for him to come back before we do anything."

"I'm trying to bait it, convince the thing to snap at me before I'm really in range. After all, if Grissom-18 doesn't make it back, I want to know what it is before the armies of Darkness and death swarm out of it and we have to stuff the gateway with trinitrotoluene." Kaylee was floating her ship around now, trying to mimic a fly's random flight patterns.

Jynarri was incredulous. "Trinitro-what? And don't talk that way. Grissom-18 will be back. He's a Defender. He can take whatever's beyond that gateway."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Kaylee sniffed. Grissom-18 was the only reason that she was on the team. Heck, Grissom-18 was the only reason there was a team. If he didn't come back, she'd be alone. Again. Sure, everyone died alone. But aside from that first time, Kaylee had had a team to bring her back. Kaylee didn't want to come back alone ever again. That had been terrifying.

Suddenly, lighting arced off of the gateway's spinning ebony core, racing away from the machine. Kaylee acted on instinct, flinging the controls into full reverse. But the lightning wasn't hunting her. Rather, it curled around nothingness like a lover before disgorging a ship from its embrace. Kaylee reoriented Quite Content Damsel until its weapons suite was directed at the invader.

After a moment, though, the ship's IFF was patched in, revealing that it was Grissom-18 piloting Laughing Behind Your Back. Kaylee breathed a sigh of relief before pelting Grissom-18 with questions. "What happened? Where did you go? Did you meet anything?"

It was a relief to both Kaylee and Jynarri to hear Grissom-18's voice as he said, "I went through the gateway. To another star system, thirty-six light years away. No, thank goodness."

Jynarri's ship, Rope to Heaven, swept around Pluto and assumed a loose formation with Laughing Behind Your Back and Quite Content Damsel. "So," Jynarri asked, "How do we go through this gateway?"

Jynarri could almost hear the whirring servos and motors of Grissom-18's robotic shrug. "I dunno." Jynarri snorted. Typical Titan outlook. Never looking into the why or how of things. "Ghost just interfaced with the structure and all of a sudden, we were hurtling through space faster than I could blink," Grissom-18 elaborated.

Kaylee chimed in for a pair of cents, informing everyone that, "You're both a Titan and an Exo. You can't blink in any sense of the word."

"It was a figure of speech, Kaylee," Jynarri said. "Now, Grissom-18, what did you do when you 'interfaced with the gateway?'"

"The gateway sent a standard handshake protocol, which I responded to. As soon as that happened, it sent a secondary request for the mass of Laughing Behind Your Back. It was merely a courtesy, though. Whatever was sending a signal through the gateway got the mass anyway. And then we were gone," Grissom-18's Ghost elaborated.

There was silence for several moments as the three Guardians aligned their ships with the gateway. Three radios crackled to life as Kaylee said, "T minus three. T minus two. T minus one. Ghosts, prepare to fly."Simultaneously, each Ghost sent mass information to the gateway, prompting lightning to respond. Kaylee was the furthest away from the gateway, giving her just enough time to watch as a pair of lightning bolts sung away from the dark mass and licked Laughing Behind Your Back and Rope to Heaven. Half a heartbeat later, Quite Content Damsel was bathed in light as a third bolt flung Kaylee into a massless tunnel woven through spacetime.

Rope to Heaven was threatening to break up if such ludicrous speeds kept up. Jynarri cursed himself for not splurging on additional inertial dampeners to keep the ship stable. It hadn't seemed important when Holloway had suggested it, and Lord Saladin had been in the tower, offering Perun's Fire for eleven thousand glimmer.

Jynarri's vision started to darken on the edges, sending his mind spiraling to the stories he'd heard about the Vault of Glass. Was this Vex? Did Oracles live here? Jynarri hoped not, but it would explain their ability to warp across star systems in an instant. Jynarri wasn't good enough to have fought Atheon. He wasn't prepared to do this. Had there been other members of his fireteam? Did he not remember them becuase they had never existed in the first place?

Jynarri was close to hyperventilating, and Ghost's quiet mumbling wasn't helping matters. "Grab a hold of yourself. Warlocks do not panic. I see the patterns now. But it's not Vex. There are other reasons for my vision to black out. There are other reasons." Jynarri didn't feel any better after his little pep talk, but at least he was calm.

Fainting was near when Rope to Heaven came out the other end of the gateway, so Jynarri couldn't feel the smooth transition that didn't match the change in acceleration. He was just starting to regain his mental faculties when Kaylee's cheerful voice broke into his thoughts. "Woo hoo! If you didn't have aerospace combat design theory integrated into your armor, those gees would have sucked, but that was fun. Can we do it again?"

Jynarri was still too out of it to respond, but Grissom-18 played the knight in shining chassis for him. "I'm a robot, but Jynarri isn't. Let's spare his bodily fluids."

"Thank you," Jynarri wheezed as he fought to get oxygen to his brain. Just a black out, not Vex. Thank goodness. As Jynarri regained his bearings and studied his surroundings, he realized something. "My god. It's filled with Light!"

"What? But the Darkness was emanating from the gateway. This place should be full of it."

"Look. But not with your eyes. Stretch your mind and feel the Universe. Touch the photons searing through the void, smell the neutrinos shooting through your soul, hear the vibrations of quantum string, and taste the Higgs field," Jynarri guided Kaylee and Sandril-18. "You are not you. You are a conduit for Light. Find the Light welling up from inside you and follow it outside yourself. Is it alone against the Darkness? Or is it merely background noise compared to the natural Light of the system?"

Everything was silent as Grissom-18 and Kaylee tried to follow Jynarri's instructions. The quiet was peaceful for a nice long time. Eventually, though, Kaylee broke into Jynarri's thoughts and said, "I see it, if only faintly, like a veil hung over the Universe. But I see Darkness emanating from the gateway. Am I doing it wrong?"

"Not that I can tell. I'd noticed it too. And the only reason I can think of is that the gateway itself is the source of Darkness, or that there's another, hidden path that the gateway can take you down. Neither option bodes well. We'll need to study the gateways much more in depth later."

"Our job is scouting," Kaylee cautioned. "Worry about the gateway's properties after we get back and inform Dead Orbit." As an afterthought, Kaylee asked, "Is this how everything looks to you all the time?"

Jynarri shrugged, even though Kaylee couldn't see the motion. He said, "My helmet filters the noise so that I can concentrate on my own Light. But normally? Yes."

"You filter it out? But how can you concentrate if you don't see everything?" Kaylee paused long enough for Jynarri to start responding. But before he could get out more than a phoneme, Kaylee interrupted him. "Oh, I get it. That's why you're so terrible at sniping. You try to focus only on the target and yourself and you forget to see everything else. But that stuff matters. My helmet lets me see more: wind speed, movement of the target, planetary gravity, bullet velocity, predicted recoil. You need to know everything to place a bullet."

Grissom-18 came onto the speakers and said, "Debate your inferior combat styles later. Just because we're on the other side doesn't mean that we're done with our job. And besides, everyone knows that a helmet is just an invincible brain-case there to protect your head."

Jynarri flipped a switch and toggled his thrusters. "Then I recommend we investigate the third planet in the system. According to my scanner, it's in the Goldilocks zone, and it's the only planet I can find with the taint of Darkness." Jynarri waited only long enough to hear confirmations before spinning up the warp drive. His hands danced over the controls. Once all the lights that should be glowing were and all the lights that shouldn't weren't, Jynarri gripped the throttle and slammed it forward. All at once, he entered a tunnel fabricated out of Light. It was rushing, pulling him along toward its nexus, where the Light was pooled into a brilliance.

As soon as Rope to Heaven waded into the Light, Jynarri was thrown back into real space, right above the planet. It was a green planet, filled with lush forests. Right behind Rope to Heaven, Laughing Behind Your Back and Quite Content Damsel emerged and began landing procedures. Jynarri followed suit, bringing his ship into the atmosphere. As Ghost piloted it down, Jynarri checked over his weapons and armor. The Devil You Know was operating smoothly, as was Perun's Fire. And Exodus Plan RS/1 was in its berth, ready to be transmatted right to Jynarri's hands.

The trio of ships swept down over the trees, wind rushing past them and rustling the leaves in the treetops. At a gap in the tree line, the bronze spaceships slowed and allowed a team of Guardians to teleport onto the surface.

Grissom-18 landed first, Up For Anything at the ready. Jynarri followed, holding The Devil You Know. And Kaylee dropped in last, B-Line Trauma already pointed. Once everyone was down, Grissom-18 spoke. "All right, Guardians. Scanners show that the highest concentration of non-natural structure is just a little ways ahead. There's no Sparrow Link, though, so we'll have to progress on foot. Kaylee, I want you up front, a couple hundred meters out. I do not, however, want you to engage. You see anything alive, you withdraw and wait. I don't want you engaging something that takes a full fireteam to kill."

Kaylee nodded and saluted with two fingers. "Got it. Badass Bladedancer, moving out." Kaylee bounded forward with impossible speed, and pretty soon, all Grissom-18 could see was the memory of her cape fluttering in the wind.

"All right. Let's follow," Grissom-18 said as he took several steps forward. Jynarri stayed with him as they slunk into the trees, foggy air and dense vines parting way for the pair. The jungle was dark, punctuated only rarely by shafts of sunlight barreling through the treetops.

After several minutes of walking, Kaylee whispered, "I've found the city. Darkness clings to the doorways and drips from the rooftops, but the entire place feels abandoned. It reminds me of Asylum on Venus, but worse, somehow. I haven't seen anything, but I'm not about to walk into that city alone."

Grissom-18 said, "Sit tight. We'll be there soon. Find someplace high up and hole up. We may need sniper support." As Kaylee gave her affirmative, Grissom-18 could hear the familiar sounds of Efrideet's Spear being readied. Grissom-18 and Jynarri slung their weapons back and started out at a dead sprint.

Jynarri slid to a halt at the edge of the trees. He was standing on a cliff overlooking groups of squat, round buildings with wide doorways. It took only a glance to see why Kaylee had refused to enter, despite her normally chipper and annoying personality. There was Darkness crawling through the entire city. It wasn't a ghost town; the things that existed here simply weren't alive.

A few meters to Grissom-18's left, Kaylee stood up and shook off her invisibility. "I'm glad you're here," she whispered, glancing worriedly at the buildings peeking over the lip of the cliff. "I think the architecture is Cabal, and I think it was watching me. I've been turning invisible and finding new hiding spots, but that's only a temporary fix."

"Sorry for sending you off on your own."

"It's okay. You didn't know. I suppose we'll need to explore this place, huh?" Though the air was dead, Grissom-18 could swear that his tactile sensors detected a chilly gust blowing along his back.

"Unfortunately, yes." Kaylee nodded, whispering something to herself. She turned sharply and walked off the cliff. Grissom-18 swore and started to slide down, starting a miniature rock slide. Jynarri, meanwhile, glided down, lazily circling the two figures below him until he was touching the ground.

The team advanced slowly, making sure that all angles were covered by a gun. Kaylee felt the Light inside her glowing with enough force that she could channel it into her knives and begin a wild dance, should she feel threatened. But there were no enemies to fight, and her Light seemed very small compared to the intensity of the all-encompassing Darkness trying to snuff it. For the first time in a very long time, Kaylee's hands shook. Not enough to throw off her shot, but enough that she knew she was terrified. The Darkness back on Earth and the Moon and Venus and Mars was dangerous, but it was no where near as old as this Darkness. Kaylee had never been in the Dark Below, trying to end Crota, but she'd heard stories of the Darkness there preventing revives (aside from Fireborn Warlocks, of course) until it had been dispelled. Maybe the Darkness here was something like that. And Kaylee didn't want to die. Certainly not permanently, because then she'd be alone again.

But nothing attacked. The silence of the empty city was palpable as Grissom-18, Jynarri, and Kaylee went from door to door, investigating the buildings. Each one was spartan, having only the barest necessities of odd shaped furniture. There were no bowls of fake fruit, or electronics plugged into outlets, or tins of beef, or posters on the walls, or any of the things that made a house into a home. The city looked like it had been built and then forgotten. The only clue that somebody had ever lived here was a bulky, Legionary-shaped skeleton sitting slumped against the curved wall inside one of the houses.

"All right. This is the last building in this city. If we don't find anything, we'll head back to Earth and let someone else deal with this ontological conundrum," Grissom-18 proclaimed.

"Um, I don't think that this counts as ontological." Jynarri shuffled nervously. Whether from trying to argue with Grissom-18 or because of the atmosphere, Kaylee wasn't sure.

"We don't know why it was built or why it was abandoned without being destroyed. The Cabal are nothing if not thorough, and they wouldn't remove everything except the buildings from this planet. So, maybe it isn't Cabal, and maybe it is. Thus, ontological mystery."

Jynarri threw his hands up and said, "You know what? Fine. I'm not going to argue with you, Kaylee. Let's sweep this last building and get back home. The Darkness here is eating away at my soul, and I want to leave."

Kaylee made a kissy face and bent at the knees a little. "Aw. Is da big stwong Warwock scayred?" Even as Jynarri's face contorted underneath his helmet, Kaylee was laughing and skipping away into the building. Jynarri groaned and followed her in, Grissom-18 trudging along silently behind him.

The building was just as empty as all the rest. There were four rooms, arranged at the corners of an invisible square etched in the sky above the fat building. The first room was entirely empty, save a pair of doorways. "I'll go left. Kaylee, you check the right door. And Jynarri, stay here. I don't want us to be caught with our pants down this close to the end of the job," Grissom-18 said.

"Come on Grissom-18. We've been investigating this place for hours, and nothing's attacked us. Why do you keep putting up a sentry every time?" Kaylee whined.

The complaint was calculated, designed to get a rise out of Jynarri. It succeeded. "You're not the sentry this time around. Don't complain." Jynarri paused for effect before continuing, "And think of the long game for once. Just because you wouldn't wait doesn't mean that a more patient enemy might not. Because if you led this fireteam, god forbid, we wouldn't be ready if an enemy attacked at this very instant."

Grissom-18 made a sound like that of clearing his throat (if he'd had one) and said, "I lead this fireteam, but that doesn't mean that we'd be ready for an attack this very instant, thanks to your bickering." Kaylee could swear that his eyes were glowing brighter than normal through his hemet, as though he was trying to spontaneously combust Jynarri and Kaylee where they stood. He glared for a few seconds longer before turning and stalking across the threshold.

Kaylee turned silently and waltzed through through her doorway. The room was nearly as bare as everywhere else. It had a raised stone slab in the center, and another one jutting out of the wall, low to the ground. A bedroom, maybe? Kaylee circled the room, running one hand around the table. Her eyes were everywhere, praying for a clue. The room was a dome; there were no corners to hide in. The table was a single block; nothing could be hid underneath it. Kaylee spiraled outward, slipping her hand off of the table and sliding her other one onto the wall. It danced, tracing patterns on the wall as Kaylee followed the wall around the room. Once, twice. It was on the third go-round that something finally caught Kaylee's eye. It was tucked away, far under the hard bed. If she'd been even a centimeter taller, Kaylee would have missed it.

Kaylee bent down and peered to the tiny gap beneath the rock. Shoved far back, there was just a glowing speck to show that Kaylee wasn't hallucinating. She flapped her hand around some, trying to find the object. After several attempts, the shiftwire layering Kaylee's hands finally felt something other than cold, hard stone. Her fingers wrapped around the thing and withdrew it from beneath the bed. It was a piece of Cabal electronic paper, mostly blank. Only a few pixels still flickered, glinting in the sunlight. It must have been tossed under the bed at some point, forgotten at some point in the distant past before whatever exodus had happened.

Kaylee almost bumped into Grissom-18 on the way through the door. "Hello. What took you so long? I swept both rooms already," Grissom-18 said.

Kaylee took a deep breath to steady herself. "Because I found something." She held up the mostly blank sheet. Gingerly, Grissom-18 took it and turned it over in his hands, as though he was looking for a keyhole to unlock its secrets.

Purposefully, the pair rejoined Jynarri and Grissom-18 said, "Look what Kaylee found. Do you know what it is?"

"Let me see that." Grissom-18 passed the artifact to Jynarri, who also turned it over in his hands. After a few moments of intense study, Jynarri's hands glowed purple and he covered the sheet in his own glow. "I recognize it as a Cabal e-sheet, but other than that, I'm not sure what's on it. In fact, it's almost dead. Those last few glowing pixels are sucking up all the remaining battery life."

"Can you fix it?"

Jynarri chuckled to himself. "Fix it? No. It's not broken. But if it doesn't get a power supply very soon, any information that might have been on it will be lost. I'm sure Kaylee could jury-rig a connection out of shiftwire, but she'd need a supply of electricity to connect it to."

Grissom-18's tone was playful as he said, "I'm a supply of electricity. Kaylee, can you do anything?"

Kaylee shrugged. "You'll need to show me where your power supply is, and I'll need to play with it a little, but I'm sure I can get you hooked up. Sapphire wire is good like that." Kaylee sat down and started scooting closer to Grissom-18 even as she summoned Ghost and told it, "Get me my reserves of sapphire wire, some glimmer, helium filaments, shiftwire from an old suit of armor, and a little bit of spinmetal and relic iron, just in case." Kaylee set down B-Line Trauma and cracked her knuckles through her armor. Kaylee always cracked her knuckles, since it made Jynarri and Grissom-18 jealous. Jynarri's armor wasn't flexible enough to let him pop his knuckles with his gloves on, and Grissom-18's joints were regulated by pistons rather than a fluid, meaning that he physically couldn't crack his knuckles.

It took twenty-three minutes and fifty-six seconds for Kaylee to fabricate a connection. An additional minute and fourteen seconds were wasted snapping the cord onto Grissom-18 and then onto the Cabal paper. After twenty-one seconds of waiting with bated breath, the screen glowed with an orange light, displaying holographic pictures labeled with floating glyphs. Clearly, the sheet's residual charge was enough to last for twenty-five minutes and thirty-one seconds.

"Huh." Kaylee scratched her helmet before elaborating. "I don't recognize any of this. Anyone else understand?"

Grissom-18 shook his head silently, but Jynarri spoke up. "I majored in exolinguistics back before I died. Ikora Rey put my skills to use investigating Cabal structures back before I joined the team." Kaylee shrugged and passed the e-paper to Jynarri.

Jynarri balanced the e-paper in one hand and used his other to start prodding the holograms. Each time his finger broke the projected light, the screen fuzzed up and flashed red. At last, Jynarri shook his head and said, "It's locked onto this page, and I can't change it. However, it seems like this is a navigational chart. Most of it is incomprehensible, but I recognize this symbol." Jynarri pointed to a pair of lines connected by a squiggle that appeared several times on the map. "It only appears in abandoned buildings that the Cabal have voluntarily left. As I understand it, the hieroglyph translates to approximately 'cursed' or 'forbidden', which makes me wonder why so much of this is labeled as such. I haven't noticed any Cabal religion prevalent enough to declare these things, so I don't know why they're there."

"Wait. Wait. Wait." Kaylee noticed something and had to interrupt. "If the symbol means that the Cabal don't go there, then why is the gateway we went through forbidden? I mean, there were Cabal on both sides." Kaylee made a vague motion with her hands, pointing at one of the symbols.

Jynarri fumbled a little as he flipped the paper, reorienting the map. "Huh. You're right," said Jynarri. Kaylee smirked inwardly, knowing how hard that must have been for Jynarri to admit. He studied the map for several more seconds before scratching his head. "Well, maybe the translation isn't accurate. Still, if we assume that even half of these things are gateways, we're bound to be able to find another few planets away from the Darkness. Dead Orbit will be happy." Jynarri unplugged the cable from the e-sheet and poked Grissom-18. "We're done here, Grissom-18."

Grissom-18, who had gone into sleep mode, abruptly turned back on. He clapped his hands and said, "All right, everybody. Let's get to orbit. No sense staying in this place any longer than we need to. It gives me the creeps." He flipped out his Ghost and stared intently at it for several moments. Kaylee felt the familiar tingling of the transmat before her atoms disassembled and she found herself in Quite Content Damsel.

As one, Quite Content Damsel, Rope to Heaven, and Laughing Behind Your Back turned and jumped toward the gateway. Kaylee breathed a sigh of relief and started working on the mission brief to give to Dead Orbit. It was her turn, after all.

Halfway back to Earth, Kaylee groaned and said, "Aw darnit."

"What's wrong, Kaylee?"

"Report's too big, so I can't send it. I hate giving briefings in person."

"Eh. Gateway is a long word. Just replace it with something smaller, like relay. It'll cut down on file size, since it was used so often."

Kaylee nodded and said, "Thanks, Grissom-18. But really, the character limit on the reports is really restrictive."

Grissom-18 chortled and replied, "So it is. So it is."

* * *

**A/N: Wow. That one chapter netted me more favorites and follows than any other story in its entirety. Here's hoping the second chapter is even better. Also, these characters are not going to be a part of Shepard's team. If you guys liked them enough, they might cameo, but they won't be on Shepard's team.**


	3. First Contact

**A/N: Sorry for the delay. House of Wolves is out, and I've spent far too long playing! The first chapte****r has received a little retooling, but it mostly fits. Chapter two hasn't changed at all, though.**

* * *

"Is this the paradox?"

The Warlock shook his head. "No. When the paradox that ensured your existence happened, it was years in the future."

"Then why are we now? I understand pushing the Guardian to the Heart you found during your time among the Vex. But why now?"

"It wasn't time that I spent among the Vex. You cannot spend time in a place outside of time."

The Warlock's companion sighed softly before replying, "Still, why are we now and not then? Or later?"

"Because the shepherd will need allies to make the paradox. And although everyone respects violence, only the Fallen and Cabal will admit it. Well, them and the Krogan. We must unite the races on the Citadel with the Traveler before the incursion of Darkness. There was disunion when the Traveler finally fell. Only together can the Light stand against the Darkness."

"I will give them a common enemy."

"They already have a common enemy. Make them realize it before war breaks out."

* * *

Captain Sequivus wanted to groan. He'd been patrolling the most important part of space. At least, that's what high command claimed. They said that he was, "The first response to an alien invasion, the leader to ensure that barbarians never get a chance to strike a blow at home. At Palaven." Sequivus hadn't been born on Palaven, but he had visited when he was young. The cities stood proud, promising freedom and safety for all the Citadel species. The buildings were beautiful, and Sequivus couldn't count the number of times he'd wished to be a Palaven native. Then, rather than patrol a quiet sector of space whose only resource was rocks, he could be a part of the Palaven defence fleet. Or maybe on the Batarian border flighting off definitely not government sanctioned pirates. Any other job would have more action than watching dormant relays to make sure that they stayed dormant. But, because he hadn't been born on Palaven, he could hardly hope to both captain a ship and protect the homeworld. Oh, there wasn't any official rule, but there were only so many leadership positions in the fleets, and every Turian went into the military. Palaven natives had just had more opportunities to attend more prestigious universities, so they looked much better in charge.

But all that was about to change. Sequivus knew it; the promise was under the edges of his plates and it really itched. But he could hardly scratch it while all of his subordinates looked on. Sequivus was a proud Turian, and he would act like one.

As if in answer to that promise of change, Lieutenant Vakarian addressed Sequivus, "Captain, I'm getting a message from Command. Shall I patch it through?"

The captain nodded and said, "Put it on screen." With a few deft movements, the face of Admiral Fedorian appeared before Sequivus.

Sequivus snapped to attention, talon raised in salute. Eventually, Fedorian dismissed the salute with a small gesture. "To what do I owe the pleasure, admiral?"

"No pleasure, captain. Have the ships in your patrol found any unusual activity near the relays?" Sequivus was confused; admirals didn't call captains on a whim. It was the captain's job to report anything unusual, so a call from the admiral was bad.

Sequivus shook his head. "No, sir. We'll be coming up on the last relay in the sector soon, but everything has been all quiet."

Admiral Fedorian's mandibles flared as he said, "No captain, everything has not been all quiet." Fedorian's tone suddenly changed as he said, "So check that last relay, because I want it checked yesterday."

"We're getting there as fast as we can, but why do you need us to mess up the patrol schedule? I'm sure that you're aware of the need for constant, regular checks."

Admiral Fedorian released a pent-up breath. "Three cycles ago, Irune declared a state of wartime emergency, prompting the Volus Protectorate to pass military leadership to the Turian Hierarchy, per our initial agreement. We finally have realtime data about the invaders and can confirm that initial panicked descriptions are chillingly accurate."

"With all due respect, sir," Sequivus said, "I don't doubt that the Batarians can be needlessly cruel when trying to take slaves, but how can it be chilling?"

"Because they're not Batarians. The invaders aren't anything I've ever seen. They aren't anything anybody has ever seen. So now do you see why I want you to have finished the relay patrols?"

Sequivus blinked. This was making his scales itch in an entirely new way. A new species. A new, violent species. A new, violent species attacking Hierarchy space. "Yes Admiral. I will inform you of my findings."

Admiral Fedorian said, "Good. Fedorian out," and cut the comm channel from his time.

As soon as the screen had blanked itself, Captain Sequivus looked down to address his crew. "You heard the admiral. I want us running the engines until they're almost hot enough to fry us, and we're skipping the normal discharge protocol. We'll have to live with a little danger in the air until we get to Relay 314 and discharge there." Sequivus paused for effect before almost shouting, "Do I make myself clear?"

In unison, the bridge crew chanted, "Aye, captain," before turning to delegate jobs. Sequivus could feel the thrum of his ship change and speed up as engineering crews modulated eezo frequencies and fed extra fuel to the engines. He relaxed his posture and got ready to outwait the rest of the trip.

_Fierce Deity_ decelerated, bringing its mass up above zero. On the bridge, Sequivus watched as the two other ships in his patrol as they did the same. _Indomitable _and _Steadfast _were both frigates, meaning that their commanders deferred to him, as the only cruiser captain in the area. Lieutenant Kalliks turned from his position at the sensor array feeds and said, "Captain, I'm detecting a lot of odd energy in system, like there's a moon made out of element zero."

Sequivus cursed under his breath and told Lieutenant Vakarian to, "Contact _Indomitable_ and _Steadfast. _Tell them that we're not discharging at this relay. Instead, we'll jump straight to Relay 314 to see what it's doing."

"Aye, captain," Vakarian said as she turned away and began flipping switches and muttering into her headset. Shifting his attention, Sequivus watched as his ship dove into FTL.

A minute later, the three Turian warships tore out of nothing and into orbit around Relay 314. Captain Sequivus adjusted his stance so that he could see Relay 314 out the thin window strip at the fore. The sleek lines of the relays were always impressive, but the swiftly spinning rings spiraling the core drew the eye away from the grace of the Protheans' legacy. Sequivus enjoyed studying the inactive relays, since they were still life; a beauty in an entirely different way. There was just one problem: Relay 314 was not inactive.

Sequivus flew into action, ordering the bridge crew to, "Start a conference call with _Indomitable an_d _Steadfast._ Then get Admiral Fedorian on the line!" The Turians under his command rushed to comply, and within a few moments, Admiral Fedorian's tribal marks resolved themselves on the screen. Sequivus saluted as Fedorian said, "Captain, I can only assume that you're calling me to report on the status of Relay 314."

Sequivus dropped his salute and said, "Yes sir. We emerged from our massless tunnel and detected excess energy in the system. Visuals confirm that Relay 314 has been activated and used recently. Orders, admiral?"

The admiral nodded slowly and was clearly thinking about his response when the comms officer spoke up. "Captain, the relay is spinning up! I can't override from this distance. What should I do?"

Sequivus was about to order weapons free to destroy the invaders when Admiral Fedorian cut in. "Run weapons hot, targeting free. Charge your spinal cannons, but do not engage unless fired upon first. Open all radio channels. We need to establish contact." Reluctantly, Sequivus closed his mandibles and let the ships' crews listen to the admiral's orders.

The wait was long. Had the good captain been more poetically inclined (or slightly more Asari), perhaps he would have compared it to the epic detailing the forbidden love of ancient Justicar Dameena and her childhood friend Porybyss. But Captain Sequivus was not, so he merely thought that the elapsed time was about ten times longer than any relay jump had any right to be. When Relay 314 finally did disgorge its contents into real-space, Captain Sequivus was confused. He'd seen the statically charged tendril that normally chased ships out of a relay, but he couldn't see anything else come out. "Petty Officer Kalliks, what's going on?"

The petty officer's nostril plates bowed inward in confusion as he said, "I'm not sure. Active scanning sensors report three objects the size of fighter craft, but there's no element zero in any of them, and power outputs are minimal."

Sequivus blinked. It was impossible for asteroids and other space debris to trigger relay jumps, and mass relays were very safe; there were never problems that could turn a ship into a derelict during a jump. He couldn't think of any times fighters had been sent through a relay, but Sequivus doubted that that would cause any problems, since much larger ships used relays quite routinely without difficulty. Maybe it was a trick?

But it wasn't Captain Sequivus's call to make; Admiral Fedorian was still on conference call with the patrol. However, he didn't have all the information about the aliens. _Of course, neither do I._ The thought drifted lazily across Sequivus's mind, asking, _What do I really know about the aliens invading Irune? _Captain Sequivus made a decision. He made a proper, Turian decision. He deferred to the chain of command. "Orders, Admiral?"

"Fighters couldn't hope to destroy a frigate, much less two and a cruiser. Hail them. Standard first contact package." Sequivus nodded diligently and motioned for his crew to send the message. For a few moments, it was all hustle and bustle as Lieutenant Vakarian started prepping the transmission and translated it into Prothean while everyone else pretended to be busy.

Finally, Vakarian spoke. "Message is away. Repeat. Message is away. No immediate response."

* * *

Jack adjusted the throttle, leveling off the _Fangs of Nyx _relative to the mass relay his fireteam had just exited. Eva and Ben were right behind him, both piloting their own _Fangs of Nyx. _He glanced out the window, taking in the stars and marveling at the Universe. Or rather, he tried to. There were three large ships blocking the stars. He could feel them, nestled in the space between atoms, the void. They didn't look friendly; steep angles and long lines hid weapons poorly and suggested a blade, slipping through armor to rend flesh. And the ships were far larger than his own. Not larger than a Ketch or Cabal warship, but large.

Jack's mind spun counterclockwise, warping into multiple realities and rending apart atoms with its sheer presence as it found unity in the bisection of a river of thought made of stars and made of the stuff in between the stars that shine like plasma dripping slowly out of a leaking canister and pooling and cooling into something less big and mercurial and important as the Traveler and what was in the Traveler was a secret because the Traveler was god but not God and that was Good because God is not good because conflict is the nature of reality and duality is the archetype that conforms to reality so there must not be God but instead god that can be pitted against god out here in the vast infinite stretch of nothing where those ships sit thinking themselves superior to a god that has seen the true nature of reality and has become unbound to the mere fabric of it by the act of seeing those ships floating in the void and knowing that the air he breathes and the water he drinks are less essential to him that the existence of this soulful stretch of unblemished space that they think they can own without touching and knowing and embracing the void and drawing life and energy from it. Jack opened his eyes. Not the ones made of flesh with imperfect vision that cannot see everything. The strings of fate resonated as Jack plucked at the comm channel, telling Eva and Ben, "Plan nine. Just in case. There are warships out there, but their might is minuscule next to ours. Nevertheless, I do not yet smell hostile intent from any of them. They are curious babes, unknowing of what they have stumbled upon."

At Jack's order, the three ships spread apart, drawing into a loose triangle, as though to block the much larger ships' passage toward the relay. Hopefully, the pattern wouldn't appear hostile, but it would prevent targeting of all three ships while giving each one plenty of room to move and dodge. "All right. I'll establish contact with those ships, try to warn them of the Hive's sudden spread. If we can make friends, it'll be much easier to gain a foothold and force the Darkness out of here."

Ben's rich, deep voice boomed over the radio, somehow sounding even more intimidating coming out of the tiny box. "Maybe they're why the Hive is suddenly expanding aggressively. I mean, even if these guys are satanic demon worshipers who practice ritual sacrifice; bloodletting; kitten eating; statutory rape; and jaywalking, they still wouldn't be evil enough for the Hive."

"While I'm not disagreeing with you, Ben, these aliens can't have just appeared overnight. There has to have been something additional to have stirred the Hive with enough ferocity to make them attack an unknown planet. The last time they tried something like this, they were led by Crota. But Crota is defeated. His soul is trapped in the netherworld below the Moon and will remain so provided that guardians can disrupt the dark ritual the Hive keep trying to perform to summon Crota."

"Wait!" Jack's Ghost interrupted, "I'm getting a signal from the biggest of those three ships. I'll try clearing up the signal and matching it to possible audio-visual." The Ghost spun, trying to scrub the data. "Hmm. If I do this then it transforms like that, so if I," Ghost muttered to himself before abruptly pausing his spin cycle and pulling together. "Oh. Oh. That is interesting."

Clearly annoyed, Eva called out, "Well, what's interesting? Did your space magic accidentally blow something up?" over the comms.

Jack let Ghost talk for him, because dealing with Eva was a pain sometimes. It was worth it though, because she was very good at her job. "No, guardian. What I found is so very much better than an explosive mishap. I believe that the language is similar to the language we've decoded in those ruins on Mars, back before the Cabal landed. I'm combining it with data that William's scouts have recovered from the planet, and I think I can translate the speech."

Jack allowed himself a rare grin at that. "Pipe it through. Let's hear what these aliens have to say."

Ghost dipped his head and a bass rumble with a flanging echo filled Jack's ship. "Hello. On behalf of the Turian Hierarchy, I am Primarch Chavin, and I wish you a hearty welcome to the galactic stage. Once familiar relations between our peoples are established, we can welcome you into the fold and bosom of the Citadel species."

As the translated transmission ended, Jack could swear he heard Eva blink in disbelief. "There is no way that that is how they normally speak."

Jack cut in, saying, "Which is why I'll be speaking with the big ships. Shh. Ghost, link us up and run the translation." After a few moments, a light beeped green and Jack began. "Hello Primarch. My name is Jack Harper, and I wish your Light be forever brilliant and untainted."

* * *

The bridge was tense. The trio of alien fighters had formed up. They weren't in any recognized combat formation, but they were doing something. The alarms blaring in the background did not help matters. And the aliens still hadn't responded. Captain Sequivus did not want to be remembered as the Turian who started the next interstellar war. But if the aliens didn't respond, or they ran . . . Well, he had three battle ready ships and the aliens might make assumptions. Backup was not known for asking questions first.

So when Lieutenant Vakarian said, "Sir, the lead ship is hailing us," Sequivus's relieved tone could be forgiven as he rushed to order the lieutenant to accept the communication.

The words that issued from the speakers were garbled, but the language was Prothean, the computer claimed as it began translating. "Greetings Primarch. It calls itself Jack Harp and I wish you endless, pure and bright light."

The palpable tension was at once removed and replaced with dead silence. With a shrug, Vakarian shattered it and suggested, "Translator glitch?"

* * *

**A/N: I am so sorry that that took so long. I'll try to post faster in the future. Just to reiterate, I am updating chapter one just a little bit to comply with HoW.**


	4. A Meeting of Minds

**A/N: In Destiny, the only military title I've seen is Commander Zavala's. Then there are people like Lord Shaxx who are Guardians but with titles of nobility. As such, I think that Guardians' titles are whatever they were in past lives, not actually related to their current job. After all, a commander has far fewer subordinates that Commander Zavala does as a member of the Vanguard. I would also argue that Guardians don't really seem like a real military, but more like a militia without proper ranks.**

**Of course, rank does show experience you had in your prior life, giving it some use. However, treating rank as the defining factor of Guardian organization seems backward to me. That's why General Williams reports to the Vanguard, and not the other way around.**

**If you disagree, please tell me why, and how Commander Zavala is only a commander and not a higher rank.**

* * *

A Meeting of Minds

* * *

General Williams struggled to advance through the cloud of poison. The air on this planet was already thick enough to swim in. The wizards (which somehow remained mobile in the methane-leaden atmosphere) only made it harder by filling the air with their poison. Once he was finally out of the smog, he found the offending wizard and grinned. "C'mere, you bastard. Judgement is at hand." Williams leapt into the air and pulled out his New Monarchy shotgun. At the apex of his jump, his Light rewrote his momentum, catapulting him even higher, right into the wizard's face. He pumped the handle and pulled the trigger. Some of the pellets were wasted on shields, but the rest dug into the wizard's face, pulping whatever passed for a brain in its head. The entire thing cracked and fell apart like strange glowing dust.

Below Williams, a tangle of Thrall howled at him, swiping the air in anticipation. He fingered a knife, pulling it from his belt and tossing it through the eye of the Thrall directly below him. As he landed, Williams took a swipe at the Thrall that had taken the dead one's place. Before his knife was free of the corpse dust, Williams was on the move, sliding underneath a third Thrall's swipe. He leapt again, digging his knife into a fourth Thrall on the way up. With an aerial bound, William's aimed his throwing knife for the Cursed Thrall at the edge of the group.

He landed in the empty space the Cursed Thrall had cleared, tossing his throwing knife into the bravest of the remaining Thralls. There were few enough now that he could aim his throwing knife, headshot a Thrall, and have it return to him before the next Thrall could attempt to swipe at him. It was methodical, yet stylish. Pull the knife from his belt. Bury it in a Thrall. Pull it out of his belt. Stab another Thrall. Repeat.

Once the area was clear, Williams tapped his helmet, telling his Ghost to start broadcasting. "This is General Williams to all scouts. I encountered a group of Hive headed for the large city to the south. Hostiles are eliminated, but be advised that Hive are definitely interested in the large city. With the data we've recovered from overridden settlements, it might be better to send a signal to the locals so that we can coordinate defence. I want all assets to head back to the scoutpost so that we can do an inventory and discuss starting combat ops." Williams cut the link and swung onto the Sparrow materializing beneath him. He hit the throttle, glad to be on the move. Within moments, he was gone from the scene.

"Attention Jack Harp. I am Admiral Fedorian, and the message you heard earlier was a prerecorded first contact message. If you and your compatriots would be willing to board the _Fierce Deity,_ we can begin to exchange information and learn about each other." The message was accompanied by the largest of the Turian ships's hangar bay opening, beckoning Jack's fireteams' ships inside.

Over the comms, Eva chuckled. "Harp. Harp! Your last name is now Harp!"

Ben remained silent as Jack nodded to himself before saying, "Yes, Eva. We'll discuss my new name with the aliens aboard their ship." Jack pushed the throttle and accelerated toward the _Fierce Deity, _his compatriots following close behind. The _Fangs of Nyx_ slipped through some sort of barrier and into an atmosphere filler hangar. Banking, Jack turned his ship so that he could leave in a hurry if he needed to. In front of him, Eva and Ben did the same. Then, all three ships descended at the same time, settling on the mostly empty floor. "We don't want to startle our hosts by transmatting. Instead, let's actually use the ramps for once." Ghost transmitted Jack's instructions before triggering the door. It took a moment, but the wall groaned down into a ramp, clanging onto the metal floor of the hangar.

Jack grabbed his favorite weapons off the rack before heading to the ramp. He slung The Swarm off of the shelf and onto his back before loading six shells into the Invisible Hand M7 and nestling comfortably against his leg. Lastly, he turned to the pride of his collection: a gun that he'd devoted most of his life to finding. And the Vanguard wanted it destroyed. That was why he'd never told them about it. It was a marvelous weapon, and they were too short-sighted to realize that. Rather than letting some other Guardian find and destroy it, Jack had been searching for it his entire life. He'd read historical documents and trekked all across Old Russia to recover it. He'd saved it, rescued it from the hands of the Vanguard and their bumbling policy of destruction.

Jack lifted the Red Death off of its pedestal and relaxed as the weapon's familiar contours slipped into his hands. Turning, he stepped onto the ramp and then out of his ship.

Captain Sequivus wanted to scratch his plates, but that would be seen by the creatures descending out of their ships. The first thing he noticed was that they were bipedal. Their legs were bent the way an Asari's were, and the creature on the left even had mammaries like an Asari or a female Quarian. In fact, they were all covered in full-body suits like Quarians. Sequivus understood that there were several perfectly good reasons for that, but the resemblance was still startling.

The second thing Sequivus noticed was the clothing. Even though the craft were identical, the clothes the creatures wore were incredibly different. The one on the right was covered in the thickest armor Sequivus had ever seen. The one on the left seemed to be wearing a flight suit with lots of hoses and breathers and cloth to cushion impacts. At least, Sequivus couldn't think of another reason to wear a hooded cloak on top of the suit. Both of those, Sequivus understood, though he questioned the colors the creatures wore. (Maybe they saw in a different part of the spectrum?) The creature in the back, though, was wearing a really weird looking helmet with a spike. Was headbutting a common practice in their culture? Would Sequivus be expected to headbutt one of the creatures? Were they relatives of the Krogan? If that was true, then why was it also wearing robes? Robes offered no protection from bullets like armor did, nor did it help when turning sharply, like a pressure suit did. Was it a status symbol? Were the robes supposed to be fashionable? Because if they were, then the aliens were clearly barbarians with an underdeveloped understanding of what looked good.

The third thing he noticed were the weapons. The pilot had a massive rifle slung across its back, almost taller than it. Sequivus guessed that it was a sniper rifle or some kind, but that begged the question of why anybody would bring a sniper rifle onto a ship. The gun in its hands looked pretty ancient, with chipped flecks of paint and even an actual magazine. There were even knives strapped onto the armor. Sequivus couldn't understand why anybody would use actual metal knives when an omniblade could be flash fabricated very quickly. The monstrous sniper rifle almost seemed like a joke on the short pilot, considering how outdated the rest of its arsenal seemed to be.

The soldier, on the other hand, looked like a monster bred for life on Tuchanka. Its armor more closely resembled that of a walking tank than any sort of personnel defencive suit. And it had the guns to match. A giant pistol that looked like it could shoot fighter planes out of the sky. A shotgun that would snap a Krogan's arm. And was that a rocket launcher strapped to its back? Was it supposed to encourage the Turians to negotiate?

But that was nothing compared to the robed one's weapons. The shotgun on his hip was much sleeker and less terrifying, the machine gun on his back was infinitely better than another rocker launcher, but the gun in his hands screamed danger. It looked . . . hungry. Hungry and vicious. Unsafe. Liable to go off at any moment. The gun's barrel was covered in a splatter of red. Sequivus didn't know what the red meant, but it probably wasn't good if it was on a weapon's barrel. After all, the other thing attached to the weapon's barrel was a giant knife positioned like some kind of bayonet. Who used a bayonet on a gun? If your guns could shoot straight enough to hit the planet, you shouldn't be close enough for knife work when using a gun that large, and pistols were too small to support bayonets. To require a bayonet on a gun that big would require an insane military doctrine or absurd fighting style.

Sequivus stepped forward and raised his talon in the traditional greeting. The cloaked one matched his steps and tried to emulate the greeting, but it seemed to have trouble bending its digits properly. Sequivus appreciated the gesture nonetheless. "I am Captain Sequivus, the commander of this vessel, and I welcome you aboard."

The aliens shifted, moving their guns around. This was the moment of truth. Were they going to shoot, or were they going to speak? After two and a half eternities, the robed one finally made noise. Sequivus didn't understand it, but a moment later, an orb of blue light materialized next to the alien and started pulsing. Sequivus was glad that his troops were disciplined enough to not just shoot at the combat drone, especially when it started speaking Turian. It even provided a flange. "Greetings captain-commander. I am Jack, the leader of this fireteam."

Sequivus's mandibles twitched. That was impressive. The aliens had rigged a translator not just to Prothean, but then to Turian as well. It was almost too impressive. Captain Sequivus whispered into his comm, "I want CyberSpecWar to look over our firewalls. However they got a working translation, it probably wasn't the most benign. But be discreet. We don't want to alert them to what we're doing." Sequivus waited only long enough to hear a confirmation before speaking to Jack. "May we escort you to guest quarters so that we can get to the Citadel to meet more formally?"

"I'm afraid that that won't be possible, captain-commander." The alien's voice was smooth, like an Asari trying to convince somebody to come to bed with her. "We are responding to a distress call, and time is of the utmost importance."

"And I empathize with your distressed, but there is a protocol, and a reason for that protocol. You will be treated well, and your ships shall remain untouched."

Jack shook its head. "Captain-commander, please. Be reasonable." And there it was. Be reasonable. Spirits protect Sequivus from politicians, because, apparently, these aliens had them too. "In a situation such as this, every moment matters. Already, we have deviated from providing assistance in order to avoid confrontation with you. I am sure that," was all that Jack could say before the drone stopped translating and started speaking in the alien's language. Jack turned and responded in kind. A moment later, he said, "Excuse me. We are receiving a message from our men. Perhaps this will convince you to let us bypass protocol. Ghost, play message."

The drone spun and began to display a holographic message. There was another alien, this one wearing the pressure suit and cloak combo. But that wasn't what Captain Sequivus focused on. The city in the background was familiar. It was a city on Irune. These were the invaders after all. And Fedorian had let them onto his ship. Captain Sequivus pulled out his sidearm and pointed it at Jack's head. He pulled the trigger and watched the alien attacking his people crumple to the floor.

* * *

**A/N: I AM GOING ON HIATUS. Yes, I know that I just cliffhangered you, but some stuff has come up, and with my already slow writing speed, I won't be able to make anything new for a while. I do have a lot of plans to implement, providing you your doses of mystery, intrigue, romance, hot alien sex (because let's be honest, that's the real plot of ME), and, of course, Commander Sheperd kicking butt, but I just can't do anything right now.**

**If that makes you mad, I do give permission for you to continue this plot without me. Let me know, and I'll forward you my plans and so on. You don't need to follow them, but do give me credit.**

**I'm sorry. Last Ride of the Valkyries, signing off.**


End file.
